Month: May 2022

Trust in Whom?

Posted on by Maya Mehta

Most of the time, we talk about trust as if it has its own independent existence. We can build trust; we can destroy trust. This treats it like it is an aspect of the relationship and is based on how people behave with each other. Are we trustworthy… are they trustworthy? I have trust, but in whom? We talk of others violating our trust; often, in the workplace, it is management who gets more than their share of the blame. We expect leaders to be congruent to walk their talk, and if they don’t, we think we have a “trust problem.” Or, if we are the leader, we are puzzled why the employees don’t trust us.

These assumptions frames trust as if it is determined by behavior. I want to offer another point of view.

Trust is more an expression of our own inner world, not an outside-in reaction to people and events as they affect us.

Trust is a State of Mind

Vaclav Havel, in his “Politics of Hope” book, writes about hope in a way that also applies to trust. Editing him slightly, he says something like this:

, “I should say first that hope is, above all, a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope in us, or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some observation of the world or estimate of the situation.”

As with hope, trust may be something that we carry within us. It is, in many ways, a projection of our own internal struggle onto those around us. If we distrust others, it is that we are asking them to carry a weight that we cannot bear within ourselves.

It is more an attitude about myself, an estimate of my own capacities. For example, if I do not have faith in management, a more accurate statement is that I am not happy with the way I act or feel when I am around management. It is my response to their power that bothers me. My caution. My speaking in generalities. My quickness to back down in the face of an indifferent or controlling act on their part. My short-fused cynicism may be more the source of my distrust than anything they do.

Distrust is too often a projection onto powerful others of our own ambivalence.

Anytime, Anywhere

If trust is my goal, then I must come to terms with my own shadow: the power I give to others, the denial of my own ambivalence about participation, the fact I do not walk my talk, have silenced my own voice, have left behind my own faith and innocence. Trust is the willingness to go public with all of who I am. If I could ever really believe this (rather than write about it), then my “problem” might fade. Why we think it is the task of people in power to create a high-trust environment I no longer understand.

I can create this environment any time I want. All I must realize is that I am creating the environment in which I live. We are afraid of being naïve and a fool if we continue to trust in the face of others’ betrayal. Well, what is so great about being strategic and clever? And what is so wrong about being a fool? Maybe being willing to be a fool is the exact means of creating the high-trust world that we each long for.

If you want help to create a better environment anytime you want, check out our newest program, Flawless Conversations: Building Trusting Relationships, to learn how.

Facing the Virtual World

Posted on by Maya Mehta

We now work in a virtual and digital world, with all of its joys and sorrows. Technology is credited with bringing the world closer together, spreading democracy, changing the nature of business, and supplying round-the-clock connectivity. Geography has been made irrelevant. It is mesmerizing to grasp the world in a handheld device, much smarter than we will ever be.

Here are some aspects of this life that Human Resource (HR) practitioners deal with every day:

  • Teams are made up of people who have never been in a room together. This gives rise to the question, “How do we build a team that never or rarely meets face-to-face?”
  • The well-defined workweek is no more. People are online and in touch and reachable most of their waking hours. And expect you to follow suit. If you ask people to leave their cell phones at the door, 40 percent say that this is not possible.
  • We work at home. Our bedroom has become our office. Technology allows us to move our residence/office anywhere and have more control over our time.
  • Speed is a value in and of itself. If something is quicker, it is attractive. If we are quicker, we are attractive. Slow food is considered a revolution. Fast food is a value proposition.
  • Controlling costs is now the dominant value for most organizations, replacing the priority once given to the customer and the employee. Almost every job and function (except top management) can be outsourced to reduce labor and benefit costs. Travel and training are cut on the rationale that current audio and video technology approximates the sights and sounds of being in the room together in real-time.

The virtual world is sold on these features. More individual freedom. Work at home, learn at will, and control your own time. Get the information you need on demand. Be a global citizen.

The challenge is to address the human and workplace consequences of the technological and cultural forces that constantly drive us toward speed, control, efficiency, and short-term results.

Choices for the Future

Organizations that will truly thrive over time are creating a future that transcends these pressures. They will focus on making the choice to (1) act in service of the long run and (2) act in service to those with little power. In this way, they create an alternative narrative, one centered on creating high performance by putting the future in the hands of each member of an organization.

HR can help leaders transcend these pressures by developing leaders who give priority to building relationships with peers. Real relationships, not virtual ones. HR is a stance for leaders that gives more choices to people close to the work. It is the realization that human values take priority over shareholder values. HR clients are all members of the organization, not just top management.

There are more important values than speed and scale, and costs. Organizations are human systems first and technical processes second. Important learning requires face-to-face relationships where all learning is social.

Adapted from Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest, 2d ed. (San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler, 2013). 

Learn more tips in our eBook Engagement By Design: The Virtual Hour found on our articles page.